Growing Young
by SandyWhiteClaws
Summary: AU - Elizabeth always doubted that her oldest daughter was actually hers. She didn't act anything like her parents or siblings, they had none of the same interests... and now she's 21 and in the spotlight. What could go wrong?


**A/N: I decided I needed a bit of a break from Champions of Losing (don't worry, I have 23 chapters written and currently only 6 are published so this won't mess anything up on that timing wise.) I had been thinking about writing an AU piece about an older McCord daughter who's life took a bit of a different turn from Stevie's - one where she was able to adjust to the spot light a little bit different so when I saw Lilacmermaid's prompt I had to act on it. This piece is much more light hearted and focuses more on the original character but I'll be tying everyone in in some way! I guess it starts set in the first season but there's no real concrete time in the show that it actually starts.**

**Prompt - Something one of the McCord children likes (or dislikes) makes Elizabeth (or Henry) seriously question whether they're actually hers. **

"I still don't think she's mine." Elizabeth had said this to Henry in pretty much every combination since their oldest daughter Caroline was about four years old.

"She looks just like you." Henry responded, not wanting to have this discussion when he was so close to sleep.

"No she doesn't." Elizabeth had always argued that she didn't look like her because their jaw lines and eye colors were different. Everyone else thought they were twins.

Henry sat up to look directly at Elizabeth, "yes she does."

"She doesn't act like me." Elizabeth wasn't wrong and Henry couldn't argue with her about that. "She doesn't act like either one of us."

"That's true but I don't act like my parents either." Henry had started to check out of this conversation. "See! She at least has that in common with me."

"She doesn't act like Stevie or Aly. I guess she kind of acts like Jason…" Elizabeth began.

Their oldest daughter was now 21 years old. While their younger children hadn't adjusted to the major life changes that came with their mother assuming the position of Secretary of State, Caroline didn't seem to have a problem.

While her siblings struggled with their private lives becoming very public, Caroline welcomed the attention. She always had, something Elizabeth and Henry never understood.

When Caroline was four, they did what most parents did and put her in soccer. She hated it. They tried softball. Hated that too. They put her in gymnastics just to have a way to get her energy out and were incredibly surprised when she not only thrived but excelled.

She was six when she told her parents she wanted to be a cheerleader. They figured it wouldn't last, she would hate what went into a sport like cheerleading, right? They were wrong. Soon they were driving over an hour away to get her to cheerleading practice at a cheerleading facility where she was traveling most weekends for three months out of the year. She was traveling to big cities and fun destinations all in the name of cheerleading.

The only surprising thing about Caroline wasn't her complete lack of fear, her not batting an eye at being thrown 20 feet in the air, doing a few flips, and coming back down, but rather what her fear actually was. One would expect the child of someone with the level of passion that Elizabeth had for horses to at least share in her passion to some degree. Wrong.

Caroline hated horses. She hated horses almost as much as Elizabeth and Henry hated cheerleading competitions. She didn't want anything to do with them. She was petrified of them. Like her parents couldn't understand her love or her interests, she couldn't understand horses.

"Why did we put her in cheerleading anyway?" Elizabeth asked.

"Because we couldn't handle her trying to jump off the counters on to the floor anymore." Henry reminded her.

"How is she handling all of this so well?" Elizabeth was thinking out loud at this point but still looking for an answer from Henry.

"She's always basked in the attention." Henry once again reminded her how different they were from their oldest daughter.

"Should we worry about her alcohol usage?" Elizabeth sat up seriously questioning their daughter's behavior.

"She's 21." Henry was really done with this conversation. He understood its importance but really wanted sleep before Caroline got in town and exhausted them even more with her shenanigans.

"Do I need to remind you we caught her with alcohol when she was 17?" Elizabeth wasn't going to let him check out of this conversation.

"And we disciplined her for that." Henry once again reminded his wife.

"And she did it again. And again. And again. And you remember when we caught her with a fake ID offering to buy alcohol for Stevie?" Elizabeth didn't look at her child drinking as a failure of her parenting by any means, there was really no parenting Caroline - she would do what she wanted to do.

She wasn't a bad kid though. She got amazing grades and a full ride to Florida State. She was a varsity athlete as well as participating in cheerleading outside of school. Much like her parents, she was headstrong… her head was often in very different places though. If she wanted to drink, she would drink. If she wanted to sneak out, she snuck out of the house. She had no fear in a lot of ways.

"And we handled that too!" Henry was really done.

"Did we? She just went back to school, how do we know she didn't have a fake ID until she turned 21?"

"We don't. But she's 21 now, she's not doing anything illegal. She's still getting great grades in school, she's still focused on cheerleading too, plus she's already studying for the LSAT, she'll be fine." Henry really didn't see the point in worrying about what their daughter was doing a few weeks ago. "There's nothing to worry about now. She has her head screwed on straight."

With that Henry rolled over and closed his eyes. He was exhausted and quickly was fast asleep. Elizabeth wasn't so lucky. She tossed and turned all night. Was her new position going to dig up dirty details on their daughter that they didn't want to know? Would her stupid decisions result in lifelong consequences because of the constant press that was following her?

Caroline had adjusted to the press very well. Maybe it was because she was used to having her picture taken at football games and cheerleading competitions… maybe it was her 'anything goes' mentality to her personal life. Maybe it was her generation and their desire to put all of their lives details on the internet. Maybe it was just who Caroline was.

The next morning Elizabeth woke up early enough to go for a run around the national mall. She knew she probably wouldn't get this opportunity too many more times and it proved to be the best stress relief for Caroline's upcoming visit.

This visit would be an exciting one for sure but it wouldn't be all happy news. In addition to celebrating their daughter's 21st birthday, they would also be telling her it was time to cool it with the TIkTok videos and cut down her spending on their credit card. She was sent to school with a credit card for emergencies only and those emergencies seemed to be happening on a pretty regular basis. Too regular.

Once Elizabeth made it back to the house, she quickly showered and did her hair and a little bit of makeup, just enough to look presentable if there were press there when they met Caroline at the airport. She was sure her daughter would want to celebrate and she wasn't sure if she was up for Caroline's idea of celebrating her 21st birthday.

"You ready babe?" Henry asked coming into their bedroom where he found Elizabeth caught up in her thoughts.

"Yea, is her flight still on time?" She asked in response.

"Even better, 15 minutes ahead of schedule." Henry answered. "Come on, get excited babe! Caroline is in town!"

"I know! I don't know why I'm in a funk." She told him, being open and honest about the fact that something felt odd about this trip.

"Well get out of it! We've got to celebrate with Caroline tonight!" Henry tried and somewhat successfully cheered her up and they walked down to the garage when they got in the SUV to drive to the airport and pick up Caroline.

It took some work but they finally found her terminal. They waited just outside the gate for her and were very excited to see her face. While Caroline was very excited to see both of her parents, she quickly wrapped her arms around her dad's neck as he spun her around just like he did when she was a little girl. She then shifted her focus to her mom when the two women hugged and Elizabeth found herself nearly shedding a happy tear at the reality that she was hugging her daughter again.

"Did you bring a jacket honey?" Henry asked observing the tank top, jeans, and sandals that Caroline was wearing.

"First class had blankets." She answered, not really answering his question at all.

"You flew first class?" Elizabeth asked. "I thought we bought you coach? It's a three hour flight."

"Well I upgraded it." Caroline responded, slightly confused why her parents were surprised to hear that she flew first class.

"With what money?" Henry shot back at her. Caroline didn't have a job, she made money every now and then from promoting some boutique on Instagram but she was given a semester budget in cash and the credit card was for emergencies.

"I used the card." She answered, not thinking anything of her answer and beginning to walk towards the outside doors.

Elizabeth and Henry walked at her same pace.

Henry was so mad he felt he couldn't respond to her without blowing up. He constantly made eye contact with Elizabeth who seemed more confused at their daughter's actions than upset.

Soon the trio made their way outside. "Oh my god it's so cold. What is it like 50 degrees?" Caroline said confused, wrapping her arms around herself in an attempt to stay warm.

"I told you to bring a jacket." Henry told her clearly unamused.

"I didn't think I'd actually need it!" He wasn't quite sure where his daughter's brain was but it had recently been lost.

"Well you do." He told her as they kept walking towards the car.

Once they reached the car, Henry put her suitcase in the back while Elizabeth and Caroline got in the car. Henry took a moment to take a deep breath so he wouldn't blow up on his daughter about her spending as soon as they got in the car.

"The card is for emergencies only." He told her sternly getting in the car.

"This was an emergency." She was really going to try and tell him that flying first class was an emergency.

"When is flying first class an emergency?" He asked her. He wasn't sure if he wanted an answer or not.

"This time! I didn't want to sit in coach!" She whined like it was really a problem.

"You didn't want to sit in coach and that was an emergency?" Elizabeth wasn't having this either.

"Well they don't have free alcohol in coach…" Caroline mumbled under her breath.

"What?" Henry shot back hearing what she said but wanting her repeat it loud enough so he was sure.

"I said there wasn't enough free leg room in coach." Caroline tried to lie but the damage had been done.

"You said there wasn't free alcohol in coach. I knew I smelled alcohol on you but I thought maybe you were hungover you were drinking on the plane?" Elizabeth was somewhat surprised she hadn't had a heart attack yet.

"Yea ok I wanted to sit in first class, with a blanket and the good snacks, and drink free alcohol. Is that so wrong?" Caroline responded to her parents criticisms.

"When you do it on our credit card, yea!" Henry was so over his daughter's antics. Now he saw what Elizabeth saw before, there was no way this child was theirs.

"I'll pay you back for it, it was only like 300 bucks or something." Caroline tried to smooth things over with her parents.

"With what money?" Henry seriously questioned.

"I started promoting a bunch of stuff on instagram… Mom's new job got me a ton of new followers. I made three grand last month." She told them like it was nothing.

"You made three grand in a month?" Elizabeth had to turn around and look at her daughter to make sure she was hearing this correctly.

"Yea. Khloe Kardashian and I are now promoting the same weight loss tea!" She proudly told her mother.

"No Caroline, don't do that." Elizabeth was going to try to reason with her… but it wasn't going to work.

"Oh I don't drink it, don't worry!" Caroline tried to ease her fears but it wasn't about Caroline.

"Honey you really shouldn't encourage other people to drink that stuff." Henry told her.

"Oh I don't, I just take pictures with it." Caroline answered.

They were thankfully back at home before Henry or Elizabeth could respond. They pulled in the garage and Caroline quickly got out of the car and went inside.

"Why are we giving her an emergency credit card and paying for her rent if she's making $3,000 a month?" Elizabeth asked Henry as he got her bag out of the bag.

"We said we would as long as she maintained her scholarship. She is." Henry reminded her, though he wasn't exactly happy about the truth.

"Right right." Elizabeth less than excitedly remembered.

They walked inside to find Caroline had already turned music on and grabbed some food out of the fridge. Henry grabbed a remote and turned down their bluetooth speaker while Caroline was busy getting a glass for something to drink.

"Come on dad, let's have some fun!" She said in response to him turning down the music.

"It's a little early for that." He told her.

"It's like 11:00AM and in the laws of McDonalds which are the laws of the United States, breakfast is officially over and partying is acceptable." Her logic was deeply flawed.

"No." Elizabeth told her.

"Ok well before the youngins get home..." Being in Florida had caused her to pick up pieces of the southern dialect. "Let's have a little fun! I'm 21 now and we can have some family fun!"

"No." Henry immediately shot her idea down. He wasn't sure what she was talking about but knew if she was reminding them that she was 21 it couldn't be good.

"Nothing crazy!" She tried to defend her idea.

"What is it?" Elizabeth agreed to hear her out.

"Let's play flip cup!" She said very excited. "Just a couple of rounds! Nothing crazy. We can even play with White Claws instead of vodka!"

"One… no. Two… you play with vodka? Aren't you supposed to play those kinds of games with beer?" Henry was both confused and concerned.

"Well yea… but beer is gross and full of carbs. And you know what they say! Clear liquors are for rich women on diets. And that's me!"

Who took their daughter and what did they do with her? While this behavior wasn't shocking from Caroline, it was moments like these that even Henry began to question if she was theirs.

They looked at each other confused.

"Oh what the hell. Let's play!" Elizabeth surprisingly agreed.

"Ok great! I had Stevie get some solo cups, I'll go get them!" Caroline had been planning this for a while.

She ran up the stairs to get the solo cups that Stevie had put under her bed.

"What the hell was that?" Henry asked Elizabeth.

"Why not? The younger kids aren't here, when we will have a chance to do this again?"


End file.
